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Copernicus Emergency Management Service: serving crisis managers around the world

Copernicus Observer

02/02/2018

Copernicus EMS

Copernicus is not just a space programme, it is first and foremost a people’s programme. The Sentinel satellites orbit the Earth and observe our planet from space, while its Copernicus Emergency Management Service benefit people by allowing to better respond to disasters and provide humanitarian aid through free of charge satellite-enabled emergency management products.

The Copernicus Emergency Management Service (or Copernicus EMS) is one of the six main services that the Copernicus Programme provides worldwide. It has been in operation since April 2012. The service supports crisis managers, Civil Protection authorities and humanitarian aid actors dealing with natural disasters, man-made emergency situations, and humanitarian crises, as well as those involved in Disaster Risk Reduction and recovery activities.

The EMS was designed as one of the tools available to the European Union’s Civil Protection Mechanism, but its services extend their reach well beyond Europe – any country in the world can benefit from the Copernicus EMS and many already have. The Rapid Mapping service of EMS was activated for instance during the series of devastating hurricanes that hit the Caribbean and the United States in 2017 – Harvey, Irma, and Maria. This service was also activated after a 7.3 magnitude earthquake that struck at the borders between Iraq and Iran, after a severe flooding event in Niger, and in the aftermath of many more disaster events.

There are four main ways that governments, local relief actors or EU delegations outside the 28 Member States can use the EMS:

The Early Warning and Monitoring Systems for wildfires and floods (GWIS and GloFAS respectively) are freely accessible online. The Mapping services (both Risk & Recovery and Rapid Mapping) have a specific process for activation – a detailed explanation is provided in the last section of this article.

Having the right technology is not enough, especially for the purpose of disaster response for which an immediate international cooperation amongst the many parties involved is necessary. This is exactly what the EMS has built – a system to utilise and connect the network of satellite technologies, emergency response and mapping professionals and the local crisis responders, a system that is available to respond to requests for help from anywhere in the world 24-hours per day, seven days per week and 365 days a year.

Mudflows in Sierra Leone

In August 2017, prolonged heavy rains caused flooding and mudflows in Freetown, Sierra Leone. The mudslide occurred in early hours of the day, and many people had been asleep when their houses, more than 300 in total, were submerged my muddy waters from an overflown Juba river. Over 5,900 people lost their homes or were displaced by the disaster, and over 500 lost their lives. It was a devastating event for the economically struggling nation. The Copernicus EMS was triggered to produce two grading maps to assess the damage of the disaster in the areas of Lumley and Regent.

"This is fantastic! That is exactly what we need," said an end user from UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation who needed to monitor the situation and to provide relief after receiving the Copernicus EMS maps.‬‬

Mexico was struck by two major earthquakes in September 2017 – an 8.2 magnitude in Southern Mexico on the Pacific coast, and a 7.1 magnitude in Central Mexico. The earthquakes and hundreds of their aftershocks affected thousands of people, destroying homes and infrastructure, and leaving many casualties under the debris of collapsed buildings.

The EMS, in partnership with the International Charter for Space and Major Disasters with which it has concluded a collaboration agreement, was activated for both events to produce grading maps that assessed the magnitude of damage in a total of sixteen different Areas of Interest (AoIs). These maps helped the local emergency managers and international urban search and rescue teams to get an overview of the situation in those areas that allowed them to save time and allocate their resources to the areas that were most in need.

Several buildings collapsed in Mexico City and in the adjacent states of Puebla and Morelos.(Photo courtesy of Manuel Rueda)

Forest fire in Georgia

Borjomi area in central Georgia is well known for its naturally carbonated mineral water from the spring in the Borjomi Gorge. However, the forest-rich area is also prone to fires as events in 2017 have shown. The EMS had been activated two times to produce emergency response mapping for forest fires that broke out in different parts of the region. The mountainous terrain, low humidity and winds made it extremely difficult to bring these fires under control and the Georgian government had to bring in the military and ask for NATO assistance to fight it.

In early 2017 heavy, long-lasting rains affected almost the entire territory of Peru, leading to severe and widespread flooding. According to the Peruvian national authorities the floods affected more than 600,000 people, destroying many homes and livelihoods. More than 70 people died as a consequence of these floods. The EMS GloFAS provided valuable outlooks on the evolution of the floods to SENAMHI, the national hydro-meteorological authority, as well as to the European Commission’s Emergency Response Coordination Centre that supported the Peruvian authorities with humanitarian assistance. In addition, the EMS Rapid Mapping mechanism was triggered to produce flood extent maps of the affected areas.

GloFAS hydrological forecast of 2017-03-20 showing the probability of river flowsexceeding the 20-year return period.

Flood grading map for the Piura region as provided by the EMS rapid mapping component

The Different Components of the Copernicus EMS

Copernicus EMS: Risk & Recovery Mapping

The Risk & Recovery Mapping component can also be of great utility for worldwide actors of Disaster Risk Reduction and preparedness. It provides maps, digital geoinformation and reports that can be used to identify and locate the population and assets most at risk. The products include reference maps, hazard, vulnerability, exposure and other risk assessment maps that provide emergency planners with an in-depth look into the situation of any defined Area of Interest (AoI). The service also provides post-disaster maps for potential or ongoing recovery and reconstruction activities, for example, post-disaster needs assessment, recovery plans, reconstruction/rehabilitation monitoring, Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) monitoring and Refugee Camp monitoring.

Early Warning and Monitoring System: The Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS)

The Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS) can support forestry and firefighting services throughout the world. The pre-operational system, through its Current Situation Viewer, provides information on Fire Danger (for example, Fire Weather Index, Initial Spread Index, Build Up Index, etc.). Active fire monitoring and wildfire emissions are also retrieved from satellite imagery at medium spatial resolution. Fire danger products are developed on the basis of meteorological information, such as temperature, precipitation or wind.

The same applies to flood warnings: the EMS GloFAS system is composed of an integrated hydrometeorological forecasting chain that analyses daily results and displays forecasts for flood events on a dedicated web platform. To use the GloFAS Forecast Viewer tool, you will need to create a free account on the website. The website also has links to YouTube videos introducing the system and explaining how to use it, case studies and other information. GloFAS is freely accessible to anyone around the globe.

As illustrated in the above case studies, the Rapid Mapping service provides maps and digital geoinformation (vector data) within hours or days after an emergency - depending how quickly the necessary satellite imagery can be acquired while the map production is performed in a few hours by a team of contractors that are on call 24h a day, every single day of the year.

There are three standard categories of rapid maps:

reference maps, the latest available satellite-based map of the area prior to an emergency event;

delineation maps, showing the extent of the event (for example, in case of wildfires, the perimeter and area of a burn scar or in case of floods – flood extent), and

grading maps that estimate the magnitude of the damage from the disaster (for example, the severity of the burn in case of a forest fire, the number of buildings, roads, etc. affected by an earthquake, etc.).

For long-lasting events, monitoring maps can be requested so as to monitor the evolution on the phenomenom over time.

In Europe, the EMS can be triggered through an Authorised User – National Focal Points in the EU Member States and countries participating in the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism. For countries outside of Europe, activations can be directly channelled through the European Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) or through the EU delegation in the affected country or region. In all cases, a Service Request Form must be filled in. A detailed presentation of the procedure - to activate the service is available on the EMS website.

With the effects of Climate Change, severe weather events are becoming more frequent and devastating. Now, with Copernicus EMS, emergency managers, crisis responders and humanitarian actors around the world have one more tool in their toolkit that can make their work more efficient and effective. We are proud to say that Copernicus contributes to protecting lives around the globe.

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